Cultural life in the Middle East had not been frozen before the dawn of the Arab Spring. For several years, Palestinian-born musician Tareq Abboushi has been stretching the borders with his band Shusmo, often undergirding string and percussion jams and Near Eastern melodies with elastic rock beats and the bite of electric guitars. On other tracks the mood is closer to Middle Eastern chamber folk; even Latin rhythms are given a spin. The wailing clarinet of Lefteris Bournias leads the group to the edges of jazz. According to Abboushi, the band's name means “whatchamacallit” in Arabic—a pretty good definition of the sound of Mumtastic.
